Method and apparatus of processing caller responses

ABSTRACT

Disclosed is a method, apparatus, system and non-transitory computer program product configured to process user call responses and assign caller specific preferences to the user based on the caller&#39;s feedback. One example method of processing spoken words from a user of a calling platform may include operations, such as calling a user via a call processing device, and sending a call prompt message to the user after the user has answered the call, the call prompt message soliciting a user response. The user may respond and the response is received as a spoken call greeting from the user in response to the call prompt message. Other operations may include recording the spoken call greeting, and determining whether the spoken call greeting is indicative of a language preference. The system may process the user&#39;s word or utterances and assign language preferences to the user based on the user provided information.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation from U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/089,913, filed Apr. 19, 2011, and entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS OFPROCESSING CALLER RESPONSES”, which is incorporated herein by referencein its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to a method and apparatus of processing a call toan automated call center menu, and, more particularly, to processing acaller or callee's spoken response, and automatically selectingsubsequent call handling procedures based on the obtained callerinformation.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In conventional call handling procedures, algorithms and related callhandling systems, a caller who dials into an automated call center ispresented with the option to hear the call related menu options in theEnglish language, or, in most instances in the U.S. territories, in theEnglish and Spanish languages. For instance, two different versions ofthe same message may be presented to a caller or callee providing themwith an option to select English or Spanish by pressing “1” for Englishor “2” for Spanish.

During the course of the phone call, user behavior information is oftendisregarded or discarded, and is not used to process a response or offeradditional services to the caller. For example, a caller may submit arequest, speak in a particular foreign language and/or share a greetingthat would provide information about the particular caller withouthaving to request such information.

Certain organizations may present more user preference options, such aslanguage options to callers depending on the preferences of theassociated organization. Regardless of the options presented to thecaller, none of these conventional call handling processes are adaptiveto collect and analyze the caller's feedback, voice or other informationcommonly presented during the call session. Conventional call processingsystems do not perform intelligent identification of caller behavior anduse the identified caller behavior to better serve the caller.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

One example embodiment of the present invention may include a method ofprocessing spoken words from a user of a calling platform. The methodmay include calling a user via a call processing device, and sending acall prompt message to the user after the user has answered the call,the call prompt message soliciting a user response. The method may alsoinclude receiving a spoken call greeting from the user in response tothe call prompt message, and recording the spoken call greeting. Themethod may also include determining whether the spoken call greeting isindicative of a language preference.

Another example embodiment of the present invention may include anapparatus configured to process spoken words received from a user of acalling platform. The apparatus may include a call processing unitconfigured to call a user, and a transmitter configured to transmit acall prompt message to the user after the user has answered the call,the call prompt message soliciting a user response. The apparatus mayalso include a receiver configured to receive a spoken call greetingfrom the user in response to the call prompt message, a memoryconfigured to record the spoken call greeting, and a processorconfigured to determine whether the spoken call greeting is indicativeof a language preference.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an example network configuration, according toexample embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example flow diagram of an example method ofoperation, according to example embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example network entity, receiver and/ortransmitter configured to store software instructions and performexample operations disclosed throughout the specification.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example system configured to perform operationsassociated with the example embodiments disclosed throughout thespecification.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

It will be readily understood that the components of the presentinvention, as generally described and illustrated in the figures herein,may be arranged and designed in a wide variety of differentconfigurations. Thus, the following detailed description of theembodiments of a method, apparatus, and system, as represented in theattached figures, is not intended to limit the scope of the invention asclaimed, but is merely representative of selected embodiments of theinvention.

The features, structures, or characteristics of the invention describedthroughout this specification may be combined in any suitable manner inone or more embodiments. For example, the usage of the phrases “exampleembodiments”, “some embodiments”, or other similar language, throughoutthis specification refers to the fact that a particular feature,structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodimentmay be included in at least one embodiment of the present invention.Thus, appearances of the phrases “example embodiments”, “in someembodiments”, “in other embodiments”, or other similar language,throughout this specification do not necessarily all refer to the samegroup of embodiments, and the described features, structures, orcharacteristics may be combined in any suitable manner in one or moreembodiments.

In addition, while the term “message” has been used in the descriptionof embodiments of the present invention, the invention may be applied tomany types of network data, such as packet, frame, datagram, etc. Forpurposes of this invention, the term “message” also includes packet,frame, datagram, and any equivalents thereof. Furthermore, while certaintypes of messages and signaling are depicted in exemplary embodiments ofthe invention, the invention is not limited to a certain type ofmessage, and the invention is not limited to a certain type ofsignaling.

According to example embodiments of the present invention, a caller 102(see FIG. 1) may establish or receive a call to an automated callprocessing center. For example purposes, the end user 102 may be deemeda caller (one who initiates a call) or a callee (one who receives acall). One example of an automated call processing center 104 mayinclude a recorded voice inquiring about user related information tosave time and resources when establishing contact with a particularcaller. For example, an automated call processing center 104 may includean automated call processing unit 101 that receives and/or dials callsto a caller recipient or call dialer 102A or 102B. A base station 103may be used to communicate with a wireless caller 102A and transfer thecall or data message across the PSTN 105. Alternatively, a landlinephone 102B may be used to communicate across the PSTN 105 to the callprocessing unit 101.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example automated call processing communicationsystem 100, according to example embodiments of the present invention.Referring to FIG. 1, an end user 102A and/or 102B may be called by thecall processing unit 101. The call processing unit 101 may be a callswitch or digital switching device (e.g., router, switch, VoIP device,etc.). The end users may be telephone devices, cellular mobile stations,smartphone devices and/or other communication devices.

Alternatively, the end user 102A or 102B may initiate their own call tothe call processing unit 101. The calls may be routed through the publicswitched telephone network (PSTN) 105 to the call processing unit 101 ofthe call processing center 104. As calls are received or initiated withthe end users 102A or 102B, call-related menu options, automated voiceprocessing options and other communication signaling messages may bepresented to the end user caller 102.

In operation, when the caller 102 establishes a call, speech recognitionmay be used to determine how the caller greets the voice recorded menuoptions. For example, a caller may respond to a live agent orpre-recorded voice menu prompt by saying “Hello” if they speak English,“Wie Gehts” if they speak German and “Hola” if they speak Spanish. Thispersonal information could be used to tailor all subsequent responses tothe caller based on this known characteristic (e.g., languagepreference). The call processing unit 101 may be able to determine thecaller's native language from their greeting and a correspondingoutbound notification may be played in that language. Discovering acaller's native language, conversation style or other personalizedcharacteristics may provide a more customized call experience.

An outbound notification may be an automated notification that is sentto an outbound line to connect with the caller. In order to determinewhich language is being spoken, call processing unit 101 performs areal-time audio analysis on the spoken response to determine what thecaller said when prompted to speak by the automated recording or liveagent. A match operation is then performed with the caller's spokenresult against a list of possible responses to determine the caller'slanguage. The possible responses may be pre-stored in a database ofdifferent language types 440, which is described in further detail below(see FIG. 4).

Other example operations that may be used to determine the callersnative language may include recording and storing initial utterances,such as, “En Espanol”, or “I speak English.” The caller's initial spokenutterances may provide information which may be retrieved from thecaller after the notification procedure has begun. For example, aninitial determination may be made as to the user's language preference,and additional spoken words or utterances may be used to confirm theoriginal determination made, or, may modify a previous determination.For example, if a user were to initially greet the call menu with “Hi”and it was not clear whether the person was native to English orSpanish, an initial determination may be made that the user is ofEnglish origin by default, but a subsequent spoken utterance, such as,“Espanol”, “no English”, etc. may cause a re-interpretation of theuser's call preference.

Initially, a first caller characterization must be performed tocategorize the caller as having a first preference or characteristic(English, Espanol, German, Northern, Southern, etc.). The first callercharacterization may be performed by categorizing the caller's firstspoken words or utterances. For example, an initial spoken word orutterance may yield an initial characterization of English. The initialcharacterization may have a corresponding relative level of confidence,such as a confidence level ranking between “1” and “5”, with “1” beingthe least confident and “5” being the most confident. The confidencelevel ranking may be assigned to the language assignment itself and/orto the words or utterances spoken by the user.

The confidence level ranking may be based on a pre-stored word or phrasethat is matched to the user's spoken words or utterances. For example, asimple “Hi” may provide an initial characterization of English based ona relatively low confidence level ranking of “1” or “2.” Since “Hi” iscommonly used throughout the world and no words are used to furthersupport the user's language preference, the confidence level rankingwould remain relatively low. However, in contrast to that example,capturing a user spoken phrase, such as “No English, Espanol por favor”,may yield a higher confidence level ranking of “4” or “5” that theuser's preference is Espanol and not English. The confidence levelranking may be based on a relative strength of the spoken response. Forexample, if the first characterization yielded a low confidence levelranking of “1” or “2”, by default, an additional characterizationprocedure may be performed since the relative strength and correspondingcertainty of the user's preference is low.

Depending on the confidence level ranking of the initialcharacterization of the caller's language, an additional question orinquiry may be asked to raise the current level of confidence. Forexample, if the first characterization yielded a low confidence levelranking of “1” or “2”, by default, an additional characterizationprocedure may be performed. If however, the initial characterization hada high confidence level ranking for a given language selection, such asa “4” or “5”, no additional questions would be required forcharacterization purposes.

In an effort to maintain ongoing failsafe measures, the system maycontinue listening for negative utterances, such as “No”, “I don'tunderstand”, “I can't understand”, “I don't speakEnglish/Spanish/German”, etc. The instance(s) of negative utterances mayinvoke additional questioning, prompting and the additional processingof confidence level rankings and language designations.

Changing back and forth between language designations may be performedas the user may not prefer the outcome of one language and may preferattempting to speak in a different language. Users may find their nativelanguage is harder to understand or communicate with the automatedsystem and may prefer a different language depending on their accent,and other system specific settings, such as geographical languagecontext. Since languages like Espanol/Spanish, are spoken differentlyall over the world, the user's native tongue may not be compatible withthe system, so the user may declare a change-over to English for moreoptimal results. The user may change-over at any time, and certainutterances may be characterized for change-over purposes, such as “InEnglish!”, “I don't understand”, “No entiendo”, etc.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example flow diagram according to exampleembodiments of the present invention. Referring to FIG. 2, an automatedsystem may dial a callee or user at operation 201. The callee answersthe call, greets the calling system at operation 202 and the spokengreeting is then recorded and/or analyzed at operation 203. Adetermination is then made at decision operation 204 as to whether aparticular language was identified from the analyzed greeting. If not,then the default message or menu options will be presented at operation205 in English. However, after the decision to proceed in the Englishlanguage is made, a further determination may be made by the callprocessing unit as to whether any subsequent actions have been taken bythe callee regarding a language preference, at operation 208. If not,the process may be finished at operation 209. If so, a determination maybe made as to whether the callee is requesting English or Spanish atoperation 206, and, as a result, another language determination may bemade. Clearly, additional language determinations may be made beyondEnglish and Spanish to include other languages and options.

The call may be transferred to a live agent queue of potential agentswho could further handle the call. The live agent queue may represent apool of agents all of which speak the language requested by the callee.For example, if the callee selects an option via their calling device totransfer to a language-specific agent, then the call may be transferredto a corresponding language-specific queue of agents, any of which mayhandle the call when a free agent is ready.

In another example, if the callee answered “Hola” and the Spanish menuoptions and related call data is presented to the callee, and the calleethen changes his mind and desires to switch back to English, the calleemay simply respond in English (“In English, please”). In response, thecall system may detect the English spoken phrase or words and switchfrom the current Spanish operating language to English. Next, the systemmay finish the automated menu options and may ask the user to “press “1if you'd like to speak to a representative.” The user may press “1” andbe forwarded to an English line group of agents in the call center sinceEnglish was the final language dynamically selected, either initially,or, changed-over to at a later time by the callee.

The operations of a method or algorithm described in connection with theembodiments disclosed herein may be embodied directly in hardware, in acomputer program executed by a processor, or in a combination of thetwo. A computer program may be embodied on a computer readable medium,such as a storage medium. For example, a computer program may reside inrandom access memory (“RAM”), flash memory, read-only memory (“ROM”),erasable programmable read-only memory (“EPROM”), electrically erasableprogrammable read-only memory (“EEPROM”), registers, hard disk, aremovable disk, a compact disk read-only memory (“CD-ROM”), or any otherform of storage medium known in the art.

An exemplary storage medium may be coupled to the processor such thatthe processor may read information from, and write information to, thestorage medium. In the alternative, the storage medium may be integralto the processor. The processor and the storage medium may reside in anapplication specific integrated circuit (“ASIC”). In the alternative,the processor and the storage medium may reside as discrete components.For example FIG. 3 illustrates an example network element 300, which mayrepresent any of the above-described network components.

As illustrated in FIG. 3, a memory 310 and a processor 320 may bediscrete components of the network entity 300 that are used to executean application or set of operations. The application may be coded insoftware in a computer language understood by the processor 320, andstored in a computer readable medium, such as, the memory 310. Thecomputer readable medium may be a non-transitory computer readablemedium that includes tangible hardware components in addition tosoftware stored in memory. Furthermore, a software module 330 may beanother discrete entity that is part of the network entity 300, andwhich contains software instructions that may be executed by theprocessor 320. In addition to the above noted components of the networkentity 300, the network entity 300 may also have a transmitter andreceiver pair configured to receive and transmit communication signals(not shown).

FIG. 4 illustrates an example system configured to perform the variousoperations of the above-noted example embodiments of the presentinvention. Referring to FIG. 4, a system 400 includes any number ofprocessors 402A through 402N, which correspond to any number ofcomputing devices. A memory 404 may store instructions and/or dataobtained from the caller/callee. A bus 408 may provide a communicationmedium between the processors 402, memory 404 and the system processingmodules 410.

The processing module 410 may include a language determiner 412 and anoutbound caller module 414. In operation, the outbound caller module 414may dial the end user or caller in an attempt to establish a telephonecall. The outbound caller module 414 may also initiate a communicationgreeting or solicit a greeting from the callee 102. The callee 102 mayspeak when prompted to provide an initial greeting, which may beidentified as having a corresponding initial characteristic by thelanguage determiner module 412. The callee 102 may provide a spokenword, phrase or utterance that is recorded and analyzed againstpre-stored caller data in the database of different language types 440.When a match is discovered, the subsequent menu options, prompts andcaller scripts may be configured based on the initial greeting offeredby the callee 102. As stated above, subsequent categorizing operationsmay be performed to ensure ongoing user satisfaction.

While preferred embodiments of the present invention have beendescribed, it is to be understood that the embodiments described areillustrative only and the scope of the invention is to be defined solelyby the appended claims when considered with a full range of equivalentsand modifications (e.g., protocols, hardware devices, software platformsetc.) thereto.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: sending a call promptmessage to a user after the user has answered a call, the call promptmessage soliciting a user response; receiving a spoken call greetingfrom the user in response to the call prompt message, the spoken callgreeting comprising at least one initial utterance; performing aninitial determination as to whether the at least one initial utteranceof the spoken call greeting is indicative of a language preference via afirst language preference characterization operation; assigning aninitial numerical confidence level value to the at least one initialutterance by retrieving and matching at least one pre-stored word orphrase to the at least one initial utterance, wherein the initialnumerical confidence level is based on a relative strength of the atleast one initial utterance being indicative of the language preference;and confirming the initial determination based on at least oneadditional utterance spoken after the at least one initial utterance byperforming at least one additional language preference characterizationoperation to the at least one additional utterance spoken.
 2. The methodof claim 1, further comprising calling the user via a call processingdevice.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the calling of the user viathe call processing device is performed by dialing at least one of auser landline phone, mobile phone and smartphone.
 4. The method of claim1, further comprising: determining that the spoken call greeting is notrelated to a language preference; and assigning a default languagepreference to the user.
 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:receiving a subsequent spoken call response including the at least oneadditional utterance from the user after the spoken call greeting; anddetermining whether the spoken call response is indicative of a languagepreference based on content of the at least one additional utterance. 6.The method of claim 5, further comprising if the determining whether thespoken call response is indicative of a language preference yields thatthe spoken call response is indicative of a language preference, thenassigning a language preference to the user based on the indicativelanguage preference.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprisingrecording the spoken call greeting and the at least one initialutterance.
 8. An apparatus, comprising: a transmitter configured totransmit a call prompt message to a user after the user has answered acall, wherein the call prompt message solicits a user response; areceiver configured to receive a spoken call greeting from the user inresponse to the call prompt message, the spoken call greeting comprisingat least one initial utterance; and a processor configured to perform aninitial determination as to whether the at least one initial utteranceof the spoken call greeting is indicative of a language preference via afirst language preference characterization operation, assign an initialnumerical confidence level value to the at least one initial utterancevia a retrieval and match of at least one pre-stored word or phrase tothe at least one initial utterance, wherein the initial numericalconfidence level is based on a relative strength of the at least oneinitial utterance being indicative of the language preference, andconfirm the initial determination based on at least one additionalutterance spoken after the at least one initial utterance by at leastone additional language preference characterization operation beingperformed to the at least one additional utterance spoken.
 9. Theapparatus of claim 8, comprising a call processing unit configured tocall the user.
 10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the call processingdevice is configured to call at least one of the user's devicesincluding a user landline phone, mobile phone and smartphone.
 11. Theapparatus of claim 8, wherein the processor is further configured todetermine that the spoken call greeting is not related to a languagepreference, and assign a default language preference to the user. 12.The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the receiver is further configured toreceive a subsequent spoken call response from the user after the spokencall greeting including the at least one additional utterance, and theprocessor is further configured to determine whether the spoken callresponse is indicative of a language preference based on content of theat least one additional utterance.
 13. The apparatus of claim 12,wherein if the processor determines that the spoken call response isindicative of a language preference, then the processor is configured toassign a language preference to the user based on the indicativelanguage preference.
 14. The apparatus of claim 8, comprising a memoryconfigured to record the spoken call greeting and the at least oneinitial utterance.
 15. A non-transitory computer readable storage mediumconfigured to store instructions that when executed cause a processor toperform: sending a call prompt message to a user after the user hasanswered a call, the call prompt message soliciting a user response;receiving a spoken call greeting from the user in response to the callprompt message, the spoken call greeting comprising at least one initialutterance; performing an initial determination as to whether the atleast one initial utterance of the spoken call greeting is indicative ofa language preference via a first language preference characterizationoperation; assigning an initial numerical confidence level value to theat least one initial utterance by retrieving and matching at least onepre-stored word or phrase to the at least one initial utterance, whereinthe initial numerical confidence level is based on a relative strengthof the at least one initial utterance being indicative of the languagepreference; and confirming the initial determination based on at leastone additional utterance spoken after the at least one initial utteranceby performing at least one additional language preferencecharacterization operation to the at least one additional utterancespoken.
 16. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim15, wherein the processor is further configured to perform calling theuser via the call processing device.
 17. The non-transitory computerreadable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the calling of the user viathe call processing device is performed by dialing at least one of auser landline phone, mobile phone and smartphone.
 18. The non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the processor isfurther configured to perform: determining that the spoken call greetingis not related to a language preference; and assigning a defaultlanguage preference to the user.
 19. The non-transitory computerreadable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the processor is furtherconfigured to perform: receiving a subsequent spoken call response fromthe user after the spoken call greeting including the at least oneadditional utterance; and determining whether the spoken call responseis indicative of a language preference based on content of the at leastone additional utterance.
 20. The non-transitory computer readablestorage medium of claim 19, wherein the processor is further configuredto perform if the determining whether the spoken call response isindicative of a language preference yields that the spoken call responseis indicative of a language preference, then assigning a languagepreference to the user based on the indicative language preference.